Conversations with a baby starling.
 

Just sat out in the back garden for half an hour eating a sausage and chips from the local chippy, (just what I fancied for tea), and drinking a bottle of Bulmer's Pear cider, when a baby starling landed in the garden. It eventually ended up sitting on the end of the sunbed while I fed it bits of sausage.

The thing was really tame. :)

It then went and had a long bath in my water feature, including showering under the waterfall, drank some of it's bath, :D and flew up to the roof to call for it's parents.

Amazing, it had no fear of me at all. Hope it liked my sausage.

did u cough up the food for it, like a proper mummy bird?

Similar thing happened to me and Nat a little bit ago.

She was moaning about being bored and skint on her 2 weeks off work, so I made a deal with her... if she walked with me to post a letter (up on Brumby Corner), then I'd buy her some Fish & Chips from Carvers on Ashby High Street. Naturally as soon as food was mentioned, she was practically putting my trainers on for me :D

So we walk up Queensway, post the letter (well CD's for a member on here), then across down Ashby Road onto the high street.

Gor her some Fish & Chips from Carvers (any myself a couple of their legendary Fishcakes) and sat near the Spar shop on a bench.

Some random bird (I have no knowledge of wildlife) then came right upto our feet whilst we were muching and chatting away, and proceeded to let us feed it by hand. Couldn't believe how tame it was, then some fat bitch walked past with her 14 kids burping and smoking and scared the poor bugger off.

Amazing what detail you could see as it was so close.

Most birds like getting fed sausage, nothing out of the ordinary there.

Jeff are you sure it wasn't just the painkillers kicking in !

LOL

dunx

P.S. after three years in, our pond is finally attracting our avian friends.... it is 24 degrees here !

:lol: nice 1. :thumb: just hope for your sake it does not tell all its mates, bring them round expecting food and shat all over your nice clean motor for not being in.:cry:

for all you bird lovers, if you truly are amazed by the cleverness of birds then type into you tube LYRE BIRD david attenborough. (would copy and paste but my pc is broke and this laptop is not fully set up for streaming etc.), now THATS a CLEVER BIRD.

Oh this one wasn't that clever: it fell in the water feature TWICE while bathing:D

Had a similar one a couple of weeks ago - a baby great tit ( no puns please ! ) came and sat on the arm of my bench in the garden while I was there, and was hopping about and singing to me, then it let me stroke its chest and head for about 5 minutes before happily flying away ( bet its parents gave it a right b0llocking when it got home though ! )

We do quite well for birds in our garden ( could be all the food we put out for them ) - have got blackbirds nesting in our honeysuckle, and a pair of doves who live in one of the conifers at the back, plus loads of small birds come to have a wash or drink in our waterfall on the pond.

We've got blackbirds nesting in the ivy on the garage, Coal Tits in the nesting box, Goldfinches in one of the ornamental trees at the front, house sparrows in the ivy and I'm certain thre's a wren, but I'm blowed if I know where the nest is:wonder:

I never knew what an amazing song a goldfinch has, until this year:thumb:

Problem with baby birds is if you handle them and leave human scent on them the parents then disown them and stop feeding them. This is why it is so important not to pick up baby birds found in the garden as you could be signing its death warrant by handling it.

My parents have a doves nest on their satellite dish. When I say nest it is no more than a couple of twigs balanced on the bracket so when the eggs hatch I don't hold out much hope of the babies surviving as they will easily fall out.

Its surprising how pleasant and relaxing it is to sit back for a while and watch and listen to nature. You are lucky to have the sort of garden where so many different bird species will settle. We get loads of sparrows, dunnocks, some Cirl Buntings, housemartins,pheasant, and a resident Buzzard which is a beautiful bird. We are a bit close to the roads though.

I reckon that baby bird had got your number alright-soft as butter!

Les :D

Les, I see what you are saying but at this time of year we have to listent to the bloody 4 am onwards Chorus and it isnt really pleasant, can cope with some mild twittering but the birds in the tree outside our house make a right racket, dont mind the tweety types but there are the Magpies, Crows and Blackbirds, the ones that shout ACK ACK ACK ACK and the bloody Woodpigeons cooing, very restful but they never shut up, then there is some kind of fight happenening, then a Cat gets involved, then its time to get up !

What with the bloody Milkman appearing at 2.30 am in a diesel Transit I never get a full nights sleep in summer

Sorry J4CKO, but I had to smile at that one! :)

Its not a lot different here, but after a while it gets like living by the railway, if the train is late passing you wake up!

All I can suggest is double glazing.

I wonder which one it is that goes ACK ACK ACK!

Les :D

I don't know about the rest of you but every year no matter what house i've lived in birds manage to get in the roof under guttering/boards in spring and make a right old racket when they get up at the crack of dawn scrabbling about on the other side of the ceiling. It doesn't help my side of the bed is in the corner of the bedroom by the window and under the corner of the roof the bloody birds get in.

We regularly have this in our garden (taken at the South end of it):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...landm/Owl1.jpg

Plus woodpeckers, swallows, a rare colony of egrets, buzzards, the odd peregrine falcon, geese, all sorts of finches, yellowhammers, occasional godwits (rare) a multitude of various breeds of tit and more. Proper bird haven - we get twitchers from all over with their massive binos coming to see them all.

They sound like the aliens from Mars Attacks.

Mars Attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia!

Could be Jackdaw, but more likely it's either a magpie, or a jay.

If it's a magpie, you have my permission to kill it.......the only bird I hate.

Agree with magpies - I welcome all birds into our garden, but if I see a magpie I'll go and shoo it away - they are the sods that keep ripping up the bin bags as well ! Only other ones I'd get rid of are Herons, although the ones around here seem to go for gardens with bigger ponds and steal the Koi from them rather than bothering with out goldfish.

We're quite lucky where we live as the part of the village we are in backs right onto miles of country and coastline 50m away, so we get a lot of wildlife coming in - in fact, its so quiet here during the day the birds are often the loudest thing you can hear.

Have quite a lot of bats at dusk as well this time of year, some really huge ones this year as well - I think having the pond attracts a lot of bugs that they like to eat.

Those magpies are evil alright. One of my friends has got some in his garden. He trimmed a couple of branches in their tree and they hate his guts for it. When he walks down the garden they sit there following every move he makes with their beady eyes. He gets the feeling they are going to put out a contract on him!

Les

Also been having magpie issues - they keep pecking our windows and hacking at the roof. Gits. Are we allowed to kill them?

Yes, in your own garden, on your own land. They are classified as vermin.

Cool! Time for an air rifle...